Washington Oaks Gardens and the Coquina Coast South of St. Augustine

Have You Seen the Beach With the Boulders on It?

Cross A1A from the parking lot, walk down a short path through the dunes, and the beach in front of you is wrong. There are rocks on it. Not pebbles. Great pitted orange-grey slabs and shelves of stone sitting in the surf, with tide pools between them and water rushing through the gaps.

Florida is supposed to be sand. This is twenty-odd miles south of St. Augustine and it looks like somebody moved a piece of the Maine coast and left it in the sun too long.

The Coquina Is the Whole Region in One Rock

Coquina is a soft sedimentary stone made almost entirely of compressed shell fragments cemented together over thousands of years. Pick up a piece and you can see the individual shells in it.

It is not a curiosity. It is the reason St. Augustine exists in its current form. The Spanish quarried coquina on Anastasia Island to build the Castillo de San Marcos, and the stone turned out to have an extraordinary property: because it is soft and full of air pockets, cannonballs embedded in it rather than shattering it. The fort was never taken by force.

So the strange rocks in the surf at Washington Oaks are the same material as the walls of the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States. If you want one geological fact that explains Northeast Florida, that is it.

Go at low tide. The outcroppings are exposed, the tide pools fill with small fish and crabs, and the whole formation is walkable if you are careful. At high tide much of it disappears under the water and the beach looks ordinary.

The Gardens on the Other Side of A1A

Most visitors do the beach and leave, which is a mistake, because the gardens are the reason the park is called what it is.

On the Matanzas River side, a formal garden runs under enormous live oaks, with reflecting pools, brick and shell paths, and plantings of azaleas, camellias, roses and citrus. The property was owned in the twentieth century by Owen D. Young, an industrialist who chaired General Electric, and his wife Louise, who developed the gardens. They eventually passed to the state.

It is small and intentional rather than sprawling. Thirty to forty-five minutes walks it comfortably. The camellias come in through the cooler months and the azaleas follow in late winter and early spring, which makes January through March the peak stretch.

There is also a short trail out to the Matanzas River with a dock, and if you have ever wanted a photograph of Spanish moss over dark water, that is where you take it.

Fort Matanzas on the Way

Driving south on A1A from St. Augustine Beach, you pass Fort Matanzas National Monument before you get to Washington Oaks, and it is worth the stop.

The fort itself is a small Spanish coquina watchtower on Rattlesnake Island, built in the 1740s to guard the southern water approach to St. Augustine. You reach it by a short free ferry ride from the visitor center dock, which is run by the National Park Service on a schedule that depends on weather and staffing.

It is tiny compared with the Castillo, and that is the appeal. You get a clear sense of what it meant to be six soldiers stationed on a marsh island watching an inlet.

Just south of it, Matanzas Inlet is where the Matanzas River meets the Atlantic. There is beach access, there are usually people fishing, and the water moves through there with real authority. Swimming near an inlet is not a good idea and the current is stronger than it looks.

Marineland and the Drive Itself

A1A between St. Augustine Beach and Palm Coast is one of the best coastal drives in Florida, and it is criminally under-driven by people who live an hour north of it.

The road runs with the ocean on one side and the Matanzas River and marsh on the other, sometimes with only a dune between you and the water. There are stretches with almost no development. It is two lanes, it is slow, and it should be.

Marineland sits along the way. It opened in the late 1930s as one of the first oceanarium attractions in the country and was a genuine tourist phenomenon in the mid-century era. It operates today as a dolphin facility, considerably smaller than in its heyday, and the surrounding area has a slightly time-stopped quality that some people find charming.

Building the Day From St. Johns County

• Leave Nocatee or Ponte Vedra Beach and get onto A1A south through St. Augustine Beach
• Fort Matanzas first if the ferry is running, since the schedule is the least flexible part of the day
• Matanzas Inlet for a walk and a look at the water moving
• Washington Oaks: beach side at low tide, garden side after
• Lunch in Palm Coast or back up in St. Augustine depending on timing
• Home on A1A rather than I-95, because the point of the day is the road

Check the tide chart before you leave. It genuinely determines whether the rocks are the highlight of your month or a vague lump in the surf.

Frequently Asked Questions

How far is Washington Oaks from St. Augustine?

Roughly twenty miles south along A1A, which is about thirty to forty minutes depending on traffic through St. Augustine Beach. From Nocatee or Ponte Vedra Beach, allow an hour to an hour and fifteen.

Is there an entry fee?

Washington Oaks Gardens is a Florida state park and charges an entry fee, covered by a state park annual pass. Fort Matanzas is a National Park Service site and has historically been free, including the ferry. Fees and schedules change, so confirm before you go.

Can you swim at the coquina rock beach?

It is not a good swimming beach. The rocks, uneven footing and current make it a place to explore tide pools and take photographs rather than to get in the water. For swimming, Crescent Beach or St. Augustine Beach are better choices.

When is the best time of year to visit the gardens?

The cooler months, generally from late fall through early spring, when the camellias and then the azaleas are blooming and the walk is comfortable. Summer is hot and the gardens are less colorful.

Search Northeast Florida Homes

Browse active listings across Northeast Florida, from master-planned communities in Nocatee, RiverTown, Tributary and St. Johns County to coastal homes in Ponte Vedra Beach, Jacksonville Beach, Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach.

What To Do Right Now

Look up low tide, pick a clear Saturday, and drive A1A south with no other plan. It is the trip people who move here wish somebody had told them about in their first month.

Call or text Joey Larsen at 904-863-6679, or visit RetireMeToFlorida.com to get started.